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Show from the girls at Page Bl Thursday, December 30, 1982 Our Park City angel is a Playboy centerfold by Jeff Howrey Beating odds of thousands to one, a Parkite eighteen-year-old has been selected to pose nude for a "Playboy" centerfold. Alana Soares is the March 1983 Playmate of the month! The issue will hit the newstands sometime in February. A year ago, this petite beauty was leading the cheers at the local high school. It would seem that little girls grow up fast these days. "Posing nude doesn't make you different than anybody else," Alana as serts. "You've got to live lif to the fullest I wanted to fulfill my life while I had the chance. I didn't do it for the money. I would have done it for free." An honor The way Alana Soares figures it, being selected as Playmate of the Month is the honor of a lifetime. Too good to pass up. "I found out that it's very competitive to be a Playmate," Play-mate," she explains. "Over 100,000 girls each year send in pictures and of those only 6,000 get photo tested. Ulti-' mately, of course, only 12 get to be Playmates each year." As fate would have it, the whole opportunity came about quite by accident for her. Alana didn't go looking for it. "Last spring after I graduated gradu-ated from high school, I had some modeling pictures taken at a studio in Salt Lake," she recalls. "A photographer named Steve Wayda saw them and told me he'd really like to do pictures of me for 'Playboy,'" 'Play-boy,'" she recalls. "My first reaction was 'no,'" she says. "I didn't know very much about the magazine. But Steve was insistent and kept telling me he was 99 percent sure I'd be a Playmate if I would just do a photo test. "It took a long time to even decide to just do a photo test session," Alana says. "When I finally did consent to that, I still insisted that none of the photos for the preliminary testing be done totally nude. I had at least a bra or underwear on for those first shots." Picked immediately On the basis of those test photos, Alana was immediately immed-iately chosen to be a Playmate. Play-mate. "After Steve took the initial photos he sent them to "Playboy's" West Coast editor edi-tor Marilyn Growbowski. The next day she notified us that I was going to definitely be a Playmate." Then the real shooting began. "People think posing in tne nude is easy, like you just lie around and smile," she says. "But it's actually very hard work. "It's a business and it's run like one," she continues. "It was very demanding. Probably the toughest thing I've ever done. There was lots of tension. "It took three weeks of shooting just to get the one photo for the centerfold," she reveals. "Posing can be extremely tedious and tiring. They make you hold yourself 1 1 " r v L s ' v S - Hi ; A I t try - : " Y ' i V .r 1 1 M I f ir'u " V ft "mi: a, -ismEm- 5A i 4 a certain way for a long period of time. There were times when I'd be sweating and shaking from the strain ofitall.lt was tough." But a model does have some say in the proceedings. "If there's something you don't want to do or a position you don't want to pose in, you can say 'no,'" she says. "You can also request how many people you want on the set while you're shooting. I only had one person there when I did it. You only want a few people around." "Playboy" personnel were generally quite understanding understand-ing and supportive, Alana reports. "I must admit I was pretty scared when I first got involved," she says. "But they realize how uncomfortable uncomfort-able certain situations can be for you and they do their utmost to make you feel all right. Treated nicely "The people at 'Playboy' treated me very, very nice. They're very proper. They understand how you feel they take care of you very well. It was an incredible experience," says Alana, who resided at the famed Playboy West mansion in Southern California for a few days while shooting was underway. "I stayed in the mansion 11 111 1 11111111 i.i mi. nmiiiiiiw ! iiijiiii ii ui.aiiiiiiiuw niim nun nuiiim r& X. , r-y ( yMil for three weeks," she reports. re-ports. "People have wild and crazy ideas about the place but it's not that way at all. There's lots of security. No drugs. It's a pretty sedate place, but quite glamorous. "It's a beautiful house with an outstanding pool area and nice jacuzzis and stuff," she says. "They've got great butlers and chauffeured limos. Lots of nice touches. "On Friday and Saturday nights they hold parties where they show movies and lots of movie stars and other notables show up. Those are the only nights it's crowded. The rest of the time it's pretty dull. I found myself getting bored sometimes. "Somehow, people think everyone runs around nude there," she muses. "It's not like that at all. They treat you like part of the family, make you feel comfortable. They want you to understand that they're not going to take advantage of you. They get across the idea that you're just as good as everybody else, even if you pose nude." One of the nicest people she met was Hugh Hefner, the magazine's publisher and founder. "I met Hef and saw him nround some." she says. "He was usually with his steady girlfriend who he doesn't cheat on. He was nice. Evervbodv was nice. I was impressed. I'd trust anybody there." Total control Alana reports that the personal facts page the magazine runs with each Playmate's pictorial is legit. "I had total control over the biographical information they run. When they asked me my favorite places I said 'Laguna Beach and Park City.' Park City is mentioned quite a few times in the text of the story," says Alana, adding that one photo in which she's clothed finds her skipping down Main Street accompanied by her Dalmatian, Spot. "Three of the pictures were taken in a friend's hot tub here in town," she reports. Alana says she expects to receive some criticism locally local-ly for her nude photos. "I'm already sensing some negative reaction as word of mouth spreads about this," she says. "I'm a little paranoid because I walk down the street and see people talking behind my back about it a bit. "But my friends have been very supportive. My relatives rela-tives love it because they know I did it for prestige and the possible career avenues that might open up in modeling as a result," says Alana, who emphasizes that her mother, Cathy, has been a driving force behind the whole undertaking. "My mother's been very supportive. suppor-tive. She was always by my side. Some people say she's like Terri Shields, Brooke's mother." Some of those close to her have been somewhat ill-effected ill-effected by it all, however. "It's been the toughest of all on my boyfriend," she says. But with typical enthusiasm en-thusiasm she immediately points out the bright side. "But my photographer told me that I was the first Playmate he'd ever seen whose sessions hadn't hurt her relationship with her boyfriend. "I'm pretty strong-headed," strong-headed," the freshman political science major at the University of Utah concludes. con-cludes. "I wouldn't let some thing like that sway me." Regardless of the eventual fate of their current relationship, relation-ship, Alana's boyfriend will undoubtedly be among a horde of local males singing the lyrics to J. Geils' "Centerfold" in a few weeks: "I was shaking in my shoes- -Every time she flashed those baby blues- To see her in that negligee is really just too much ... My love runs cold- -My memory has just been sold- -My angel is the centerfold..." " ft Fine Clothing LOCATED IN THE PARK CITY VILLAGE OPEN DAILY 10-6 649-"EASY" NOW OPEN FOOD FOR THOUGHT Our Christmas gift to Park City and its guests: COFFEE FOR A DIME and other specials 649-4746 Cheese shop Convenience store Deli market Located at the Park City Village Ice Rink level M km II ...... . iTiiriiiwam -TO- JEUL Mi- . - 5 |